


De of Atlantis

by escriveine



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Coda, Episode Related, Episode: s03e14 Tao of Rodney, First Kiss, Idiots in Love, M/M, SGA Secret Santa Fic Exchange, Sentient Atlantis, Stargate Atlantis Secret Santa 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21924616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escriveine/pseuds/escriveine
Summary: Rodney’s been through Ascension and come out the other side, and no one else seems to get how much it sucks. He copes by trying to tell them anyway.John had to help Rodney learn how to leave this plane of existence, then watch him die. Because that’s what you do for a, you know, friend. Since then, he’s had problems of his own.Atlantis sees the makings of a love story.
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 10
Kudos: 115
Collections: Stargate Atlantis Secret Santa 2019





	De of Atlantis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [littlelostcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelostcat/gifts).



> Many thanks to gutterandthestars, popkin16, and my beloved partner for all their encouragement and beta-reading.

Rodney heaved a sigh as he headed for the Infirmary. Again. 

Of all the strange things that had happened to him since coming to Atlantis — finding out space vampires were a real thing, being gaslighted by sentient mist, timesharing his brain with a pushy kiss bandit of a female marine — Descension was without a doubt the strangest. Sure, being seized and involuntarily edited on a genetic level by some dodgy Ancient rope light had been a massive shock to his system, but once he’d gotten past the adrenaline surge and Carson’s typical medical impertinence, everything had felt… well, not exactly natural, but _right._ Like a link to some vast archive of universal knowledge had been activated, and anything he could want to know how to do — like snagging an out-of-reach doughnut or healing a gaping chest wound — was available for the asking. 

Once you knew how, telekinesis and telepathy and all the rest became a simple matter of energy manipulation. Again, not exactly _natural,_ but definitely something the human brain was wired to do. You just… You just… Rodney grimaced in frustration. Apparently, you just forgot everything you learned through the link once it was shut down again.

And _that_ was what felt so damn odd, the hole in his memory in the shape of the knowledge he _knew_ had been there. He couldn’t leave it alone, his mind probing at the hollow space the same way his tongue kept going to the gap in his teeth when he was six years old and a dare to ride Gordie Belanger’s skateboard ended with Rodney flat in a gravel driveway minus dignity, board, and lower left cuspid. Only this time, he didn’t have the comfort of knowing he’d grow a replacement for the lost part.

* * * 

“I don’t know what else to tell you, Rodney,” Carson said as he looked between two MRI images on his monitor. “Everything is the same — _exactly_ the same, mind you — as before that gizmo got hold of your DNA.”

“Well, _that_ can’t be normal, can it? Two scans being so similar?”

“Rodney—”

“Look, are you sure you’re not just looking at two copies of the same file?”

Carson rolled his eyes. “You mean, am I sure I still know how to read? Why, yes I am, thank you very much.”

Rodney looked so crestfallen that Carson took pity on him. Besides, he found it oddly reassuring that Rodney was back to his usual snippy, hypochondriac self. Carson flicked a few images further along in both series. “Take a look here. See how the image on the left is slightly blurred compared to the other? That was when your stomach growled so loud we thought the machine had thrown a gear. Remember?”

“Oh. Right.” Rodney managed half a smile. At least Carson was practicing _competent_ voodoo on him. “I missed breakfast for that scan, you know.”

“Yes, I recall; you told everyone in earshot. Repeatedly.” Carson turned away from the screen to look his most persistent patient full in the face. “Now, listen to me, Rodney — I know you’ve been through a lot, but every scan, every blood test, every reading known to medical science says you’re _fine._ And the human brain doesn’t have nerve endings, so it can’t actually be ‘tingly’.”

Rodney opened his mouth to reply, but Carson held up a hand and kept going. “Nor ‘itchy’! No matter _how_ it feels, it’s just psychosomatic.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! With all the crazy things we’ve seen Ancient devices do, you’re telling me it’s not possible that—”

“Rodney! I’m _telling_ you it’s all in your head!”

Rodney snapped his mouth closed and shot the doctor a sour look. “Oh, ha ha, Carson, very funny.”

* * * 

John pressed his ear to the back wall of his office and listened. 

He could hear the faint thrum of machinery like this, the pulse of Atlantis doing all the background stuff necessary to keep the city afloat and habitable. Her surfaces were always just a little warm to the touch — not in the creepy, way-too-organic way that Wraith ship interiors were, but more like sun-warmed metal and stone. John usually thought it was nice, even friendly, but right now he was completely focussed on his sense of hearing.

Atlantis hummed quietly and John told himself he wasn’t going crazy. Really.

For over a week now, there had been weird sounds in here — electronic whines and beeps and blats that went off with no reason or rhythm he could detect. It was like sharing an office with a demented **,** mechanical cricket. And yet somehow there was never so much as a chirp when anyone else was around. If this were his quarters, he’d put on music and let the Man in Black submerge the noise under deep bass blues, but he didn’t think that would fly in his official workspace. Maybe he could requisition a pair of headphones in the next supply run from Earth.

In the meantime, he’d tracked the irritating, intermittent sounds to the back of the office, and would swear they were coming from inside or maybe just behind the wall. So there he was, listening to Atlantis and getting nothing. Fully five beep-free minutes passed, and John thumped his head gently against the wall in frustration. 

Normally, this wouldn’t get to him — he was a laid-back kind of guy, after all — but things had been off-kilter for a while now. It was just little stuff, really, like the lights in the gym turning _off_ when he showed up early for bantos practice with Teyla, or bursts of static crackling in his radio headset and no one else’s, or losing hot water in his bathroom. 

In fact, yesterday had been the third day in a row that his shower stubbornly refused to get so much as tepid, so he’d shut it off and put in a call to environmental control. Only somehow he got patched through to Rodney, who started off insisting everything was reading fine on his terminal, and ended up muttering that a few cold showers wouldn’t hurt Captain Kirk any. Since they were on an open comm channel, John decided to let the comment slide for the moment and steal Rodney’s pudding at lunch. But then Rodney actually showed up in person three minutes later, IR thermometer in hand, to check things out for himself. Of course, when the bathroom door slid open, huge clouds of steam rolled out. John could only stare as Rodney cocked his head to one side and said, “Just how hot do you take your showers, Sheppard? I’m getting parboiled from three feet away here!”

John dropped into his desk chair and started shuffling papers around. Maybe he was being haunted by the ghost of paperwork due. He snorted as he picked up a clipboard full of mission reports that needed his signature. An even dozen reports later, he was just hitting his stride, and— 

_Wheeeek._

A quiet but piercing tone that came from everywhere and nowhere all at once lanced through the office, and John felt his last nerve fray. Time to go anywhere else.

* * * 

Well past the time when all good spacefarers should be tucked into bed, John was toting a six-pack of beer down the hall to the Science Lab. Rodney had skipped dinner — never a good sign when something wasn’t actually on fire — so John reckoned it would take a generous application of alcohol to get him to leave whatever he was currently obsessing on in his lab.

John really hoped it was good porn, or a bad sci-fi movie, or something similarly healthy. Anything but that damn laptop loaded with the McKay Math that Rodney developed on his way to Ascension. John was all for new branches of applied math, but watching Rodney struggle to understand his own brainchild wasn’t just depressing, it was disturbing. How far down this rabbit hole was he going to go?

To his utter lack of surprise, John found Rodney hunched over a worktable in the dim lab, frowning at a glowing screen of equations. That thing needed to have an accident of a very permanent kind, John thought darkly. Maybe he could convince Zelenka to give him a hand with that.

An hour later, the beer was gone, John had set a new record for number of times he had to restart a level on his Game Boy, and Rodney was still mesmerized. Heedless of the danger, John chose that moment to poke the bear. “Don’t you think you should, you know, get a life at some point, Rodney?”

Rodney made a vaguely inquisitive sound, but didn’t look up from the laptop.

“I mean, why re-take human form at all if you’re just going to be a hermit?”

“What, like a crab?” 

It was amazing — Rodney seemed to be mouthing off purely on automatic, because he _still_ wasn’t looking away from the screen. “Yes, Rodney, like a crab that squeezes into a small, hard shell and snaps viciously at people who come to visit.”

Rodney’s lips moved soundlessly as he tried out the words _hard shell_ and _snaps viciously._ A crease formed between his eyebrows and he finally turned his face toward John. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“You, Rodney! You came back from whatever that Ancient device did, but you wedged yourself in _here_ instead of actually getting back to your life!”

“Wha— This _is_ my life! With the science, and running this lab, and, and—”

“There’s no one but you in this lab! And d’you know why? They’re off doing stuff that _isn’t_ work!”

“Really,” Rodney said, dully.

“Really!” John looked at his watch. “Or, you know, sleeping. But they’re not in _here._ Not working. Unlike you,” he finished lamely. 

“Are you trying to say they have a social life, but I don’t?” Rodney frowned. His brain was kind of fizzing, probably from the beer, but hey, maybe he’d found yet another Descension effect. But that wasn’t important right now, because either way, John was wrong. “Because you’re wrong — I’ve got a girlfriend, and everything! And you know what? I’m gonna go see her… ”

John reflected that this may not have been his best plan ever. “Maybe tomorrow, huh, buddy? After some sleep? Remember, that’s part of life, too.”

Something that looked like pain flashed across Rodney’s face, and John cursed himself inwardly.

“No, see, that’s the problem,” Rodney said softly, “I _don’t_ remember. I should, but I don’t. Not about the sleeping, _that’s_ fine, but there’s something… important. Something I knew. Should know.” His eyes drifted back down to the laptop screen. “And I keep hoping it’s in here,” he whispered.

Something squeezed tight in John’s chest. “You’ll find it,” he said thickly. “And if not, well, it can’t have been that important.”

“Yeah,” Rodney said through a sickly ghost of a smile. “Thanks for the beer.”

That sounded like a dismissal to John, so he nodded and headed back to his quarters to sleep.

* * * 

The next morning, Rodney thought he should have known better than to expect Carson — who was obviously stuck in medical mode — to be supportive in his time of need. But that was fine, because even if a friend had let him down, Rodney had a _girlfriend_ he could turn to. Katie was sure to offer him tea and sympathy, both of which she would make for him herself. 

He indulged in what he considered a justifiably smug smile that only faltered a little as he recalled the horribly bitter drink she gave him during his last visit, brewed from whatever they were growing down in Hydroponics these days. Maybe less tea, more sympathy, then.

The door to the Botany Lab swooshed open and Katie smiled up from a row of seedlings of some kind. “Hi, Rodney — this is a surprise!”

“Oh. Um, a nice one, I hope… That is to say—”

“Rodney, it’s fine.” Katie fiddled with her plants. “What’s on your mind?”

“Well, that’s the thing. My _mind_ is—” A sudden gust of cold air derailed Rodney’s train of thought. Katie gave him a concerned look. “Is that normal?”

“Is what normal?”

“That arctic blast. Is that how you keep from sweating to death in here?” He heard the whir of the air handlers crank up a notch.

“No, I just drink lots of water.” Katie shivered as a chilled breeze ruffled her hair, then pulled the zipper on her tunic all the way up to her chin. “This kind of dry cold is really hard on the plants.”

“Well, I guess they’re just a bunch of hothouse flowers...” Rodney mused absently.

Katie shot him a look. She never quite knew how to handle what she had to assume were Rodney’s attempts at humor. On the one hand, they weren’t really funny, but on the other, she hated the hurt look in his eyes when people told him so. Fortunately, she found that if she just gave it a few seconds, he’d move on of his own volition.

Rodney cleared his throat. “As I was saying, it’s my mind that’s _on_ my mind right now.”

Crossing her arms for warmth, Katie nodded encouragingly.

“It’s been a couple weeks, but that Ascension machine was a, a, a rollercoaster, you know? I mean, out of the blue I got zapped into being the kind of superhero that _Batman_ would be the sidekick for!” He waved his hands animatedly. “I could actually move things with my mind, and invented amazing things — seriously, you should _see_ the new shield configurations, and the power grid redesign is a thing of beauty!”

Although she had the feeling that her input wasn’t exactly necessary to Rodney’s stream of consciousness, Katie offered some well-placed _mmm_ s and _oh_ s to show she was keeping up. Besides, his enthusiasm made his blue eyes sparkle and dance in just the cutest way.

“I even took a whole squad of bad guys out of commission just by _thinking!_ It was beyond exhilarating, getting to be the super-genius I was always meant to be. I wish you could’ve seen it!” Rodney grinned happily for a moment, then his face clouded over. “But then I died.”

“You _what?”_ Katie shouted as she felt a wild stab of useless, but very real, panic at the thought of Rodney _actually dying,_ even though he was standing here telling her the story.

“Oh, nonono, it was fine — I saved myself! Or, well, I told Carson how to save me, which comes to the same thing, really.” Rodney tried to be reassuring, but he really wanted to get to the important bit. “Anyway, that saving process entailed me getting zapped back into being just plain Batman again.” He dropped his hands to his sides. “So, no more levitation, or mind-reading, or healing powers. Just me and my formidable mind.”

Katie rolled all of that around in her head for a second, then heard herself saying, “You know, Rodney… I don’t think you’re really Atlantis’s Batman.” Oh no, oh _damn,_ he was looking at her with hurt in those big baby blues. She willed herself to think faster. “But, but that’s okay! It’s okay because—because isn’t Batman a pretty unstable vigilante…?”

“Well, maybe, but that’s not the point! He’s an ordinary human who relies on his brilliant mind and scientific gadgets to defend his beloved city from relentless villains—” Rodney blinked as the lighting in the room took on a warmer tone for some reason.

Katie tried to jump back in the conversation. “And evil clowns, right?”

“ _What?_ No, not exactly… Suffice it to say he pits his genius against evil, okay?” 

“Sure, but—” 

“Listen, you’re getting lost in the weeds here, Katie.”

The chill coming from the air vents had nothing on the frost in Katie’s voice as she said, “Weeds, Rodney? Really?” She watched his mouth work silently for a few seconds, then threw him out of the Botany Lab.

* * * 

John re-read the same page of _War and Peace_ for what had to be the fifth time and _still_ didn’t remember a word of it. The trouble was, he was fidgety, out of sorts.

He’d avoided his office by taking care of the site inspections, planning meetings, and all the other soul-sucking bureaucratic things he’d been putting off. Then he worked off the exasperation _that_ caused with a little sparring with Ronon, and man, a little went a long way with the big guy. John’s ribs might never be the same.

Rodney hadn’t been in the lab at the end of the day, so maybe he’d looked up Katie, after all. And that was a good thing, John reminded himself, because he’d nudged Rodney about getting a life for a reason. It was just that John had been thinking more along the lines of shooting the shit on the pier, or playing games Rodney would totally cheat at, or watching movies while throwing popcorn at the screen. Along the lines of being _included._ Maybe someday he’d learn how to say the right thing at the right time.

A drop of sweat slid down from John’s temple along his cheek, and he irritably brushed it away. He’d been lying on his bed trying to read for more than an hour, so what was he sweating for? Setting the book on the nightstand, he walked through his quarters, checking the bathroom and closet for good measure and, yep, it was too warm everywhere. 

John glanced over at the Ancient thermostat device and thought _Cooler_ at it. There was usually a little acknowledging chime when he adjusted the temperature, but not tonight. Going and looking at the housing didn’t help, since the Ancients seemed to think gauges and displays were for lesser beings. He poked at it anyway, then thought a few more commands — including _Chill, Off,_ and _Die —_ that had no effect whatsoever.

Well, there was no way he was calling for someone to check out such a minor problem at this time of night. Especially not after the shower thing. Besides, he’d once evacuated a city as it slid into an active supervolcano; he could handle sleeping in a toasty room for a night.

He stripped down to his cotton boxers, turned off the bedside lamp, and flopped on top of the still-made bed.

A bright light, accompanied by a hoarse whisper of _Sheppard?_ yanked John out of his fitful sleep. He wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders yet, but there was only one voice he knew that could sound so confused and worried and cross and impatient all at once. 

John shielded his eyes with one hand and very, very calmly said, “Rodney, tell me — am I being punished for something?”

“What? No! Of course not,” came the slightly muffled response.

“So, then… what are you doing?”

“Saving you!”

“Really. From oversleeping?” Reaching forward, John pushed what turned out to be a flashlight around until it illuminated Rodney instead.

“No! Your lights wouldn’t turn on, so I had to pull this bad boy out to look for… ”

The dazzle was slowly fading from John’s vision. “To look for _what,_ Rodney?”

“The, um, fire?” Rodney suddenly realized what he’d just said and hoped John wasn’t actually awake enough to remember it later. “Listen — I got an odd emergency alert that there was something flaming in your quarters, okay?” 

John finally got a good look at Rodney and the other thing he was carrying, and said, “So you rushed right over with a flashlight, a can of compressed air, and your t-shirt pulled over your face. This must be some _special_ kind of fire.” 

If John’s gaze dropped and lingered a little too long on the pale band of belly peeking out from under the hem of Rodney’s soft green shirt, well, he figured Rodney was getting even more of an eyeful himself. Not that John thought Rodney cared whether he saw John in nothing but shorts and sweaty skin, but still… 

Rodney yanked on his t-shirt till the collar fell back down on his chest with a damp slapping sound. “I was in my lab when the alert came in, and for some reason all the fire extinguishers were missing, so I grabbed _this_ —” Rodney jiggled the can “ —and my leftover coffee. I thought if—” Rodney cut himself off there because no way was he mentioning the impromptu coffee/t-shirt smoke filter. He thrust out his chin defiantly. “It was all I could find on short notice! So excuse me if I was in a hurry to save your life!”

“I appreciate the thought, but there’s no fire here, Rodney.”

Rodney gave John a wry half-smile. “Yeah, I worked that out already. So why is it hot as an oven in here?” It really was, too. And John had dressed — or, rather, undressed — for it. Rodney’s eyes flicked down and back up John’s sinewy frame, greedy for the details of where his tan lines lay and where sweat gathered and, dammit, he shouldn’t be letching on his straight best friend like this. Especially not when Rodney had broken into John’s bedroom so late at night it was almost early in the morning. 

“I don’t know — aren’t you supposed to be the genius here?”

“I’m the genius wherever I am,” Rodney said. “Did you try asking Atlantis to fix it?”

“Yeah, but it didn’t work.”

Rodney gave John’s face a narrow look. “‘It didn’t work’ like ‘she wouldn’t talk to you’, or ‘it didn’t work’ like ‘she told you no’?”

“That’s not—” John rolled his eyes with a sigh. That wasn’t how any of that worked. “Like ‘I asked and nothing happened’.”

“Did you do something to piss her off? Because my mother would act like that after a fight with my father — suddenly be unable to hear him talking or see him when he was in the same room, sometimes even lock him out of the house.” Rodney grimaced.

“Your childhood must have been a real treat.”

“You have no idea. Anyway, you might want to patch up whatever it is with Atlantis.”

“You know, none of this happened till after you ‘optimized’ the power and stuff, so maybe _you_ have to patch things up.” But John had the sudden sinking feeling that Rodney had put his finger on it, that Atlantis was, well, sulking. And he had no idea why.

“I— I’ll look at it tomorrow morning. Actually, it’s _this_ morning, but later— I’ll look at it later this morning.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Sorry about the, you know, late-night break-in.”

“Don’t mention it, Rodney.”

Without another word, Rodney headed out to his quarters.

* * * 

Radek pushed his glasses back up his nose. Was the blue wire supposed to attach above the red one or below? He tried to check the schematic displayed on his monitor, but Rodney was still in the way, talking and waving his hands. Huffing a quiet sigh, Radek set down his pliers; clearly there would be no more work until Rodney wound down. 

“I’m just saying the Ancients could have had the common decency to take notes while they were hyper-evolving,” said Rodney.

“You mean before they met their untimely death?”

Rodney scowled. “Obviously _before,_ how would they do it _after?_ ” He held up an interposing hand. “No, _don’t_ , that’s not the point. The point is that we only know about the physical changes made by that stupid machine because the Ancients didn’t bother writing down anything else.”

“And your notes are insufficient?” Radek adjusted his glasses again as he worked to suppress a smile.

Rodney absolutely did not wince. “Also not the point!” he snapped. “They might have had a different perspective on the process, is all.”

“A mostly-Ascended perspective, perhaps?”

“Right!” Rodney pointed at Radek and snapped his fingers. “Take my word for it, when your brain is busy transitioning to pure energy, it’s hard to remember that unevolved people need a, a Rosetta stone to understand your discoveries. I was working in a vacuum, but they obviously had a whole series of volunteers who used the machine. And if they had been any kind of scientists, they would have kept better records.”

Radek couldn’t really argue that point. The Ancient research records had holes like Swiss cheese.

Rodney made a disgusted noise. “And now my brain’s back to being solid matter, but I’ve got no key to translate my work.”

“Yes, Rodney, now you are only human-smart again.” Radek patted him on the arm. “But I do not think they award Nobels to disembodied balls of energy, so perhaps it is for the best.”

“Right,” Rodney sighed.

“Who knows, maybe one of the other Devices we found around that lab has some records stored on it.”

Rodney suddenly perked up and snapped his fingers a few times in quick succession. “You know, there _was_ a thing, shaped like a, a top of mushroom? It was sitting out somewhere around here—” Rodney started rooting around the worktable.

“Rodney! Stop! Please, I will tell you, just stop this!” Radek pleaded.

Ever so casually, Rodney set down the circuit board and random papers he had scooped up.

Radek clucked his tongue. “I know which Device you’re thinking of — I asked you every day for a week to look at it, you know. But since you never had time, it went on a shelf in the back room for later evaluation.”

“Well, no time like the present!” Rodney exclaimed as he made a beeline for the storage closet.

Radek smiled to himself and began studying the schematic. A moment later, he tipped his head to the side with a puzzled frown. “Huh. Since when is there a _purple_ wire?”

Rodney was tossing what looked like a threaded bronze corkscrew back into the box marked ‘Ascension lab’ when he noticed John slouched against the doorframe. “Oh, hey, when did you show up?”

A little smirk twitched John’s lips as he opened his mouth to answer, earning him a suspicious look as Rodney interjected, “And don’t go saying an hour ago, or anything — I haven’t been here that long!”

John huffed out a laugh and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rodney. I only just got here.”

“Fine, good, whatever.” Rodney turned back to the hardware scattered across the tiny room’s lone worktable. “How about you stop propping up the wall and help me?”

“Okay,” John drawled as he stepped forward to look over Rodney’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Looking for a mushroom.”

“Oh, really?” John dead-panned. “I would’ve thought it was too dry in here for those.” 

Rodney rolled his eyes ceiling-wards. “Har-dee-har-har. You so much as try for a ‘fun guy’ pun and you’re banned from the lab for a week, got it?”

John grinned unrepentantly. “Well, it’d be pointless now… ”

“We’re looking for an Ancient Device _shaped_ like a mushroom, or more precisely, like a mushroom cap. About three inches in diameter.”

After a few minutes, most of the cast-offs had been stowed back in the box and Rodney was holding the Device in question. It had round ruby panels and fit comfortably in the palm of his hand.

“Now, see, I’d call that more of a toadstool,” said John.

“What? That’s just another word for mushroom, so why… ?” 

“Maybe it’s got a label.” John walked over to the door, found it closed, and waved a hand over the control box. 

“You did _not_ see a label! Did you? The Ancients _never_ label things… ” Rodney turned the Device over and around in his hands, minutely examining it as he followed John out.

John held up a hand, exclaiming, “Rodney, wai—”

_Thunk._

Rodney bounced off the still-closed door. “Ow! What the hell, Sheppard?!”

“Hey, I tried to tell you to wait! The door’s not opening!” John waved his hand up and down over the door control a few times. “See?”

“Why was it closed at all? We always just leave it open.” Rodney scowled resentfully as he rubbed his forehead. “Ow,” he muttered.

“Listen, I didn’t close it, okay?”

“Well, I sure as hell didn’t!”

“I didn’t say you did!”

“Then why are we stuck here? Is this some kind of revenge?!” Rodney could just feel his blood pressure soaring.

“What?”

“I already _said_ I was sorry about the break-in! So why are you pranking me?”

“Jesus, Rodney, I’m not pranking you!” John said hotly. “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m _also_ stuck in here, getting yelled at by _you!”_

Rodney realized that was true, but it was too late. His breathing was outpacing his ability to slow it down, and he was burning up with sick dread. _Oh, fuck you, claustrophobia,_ Rodney thought as he squeezed his eyes closed against the involuntary tears springing up. _This is so not the time._

Suddenly there was a hand on his upper back, strong and steady, like an anchor in a windstorm. Then came John’s voice, low and calm. “Hey, buddy. Breathe through it, now.”

Rodney shook his head. His body was determined to hyperventilate, and he couldn’t, couldn’t— 

“C’mon, we’ll do it together,” John murmured. “In for two, out for two. Nice and easy.”

The next little while passed in a blur for Rodney as he focussed on John’s voice counting breaths in and out, in and out, numbers slowly going up, panic slowly going down. 

Once Rodney stopped shaking, he blew out a noisy breath. _I’m fine. Everything’s fine. Fine, fine, fine._

Then John stopped talking and took his hand away. 

Rodney held his breath. _Less fine, dammit. Less fine. But I can handle it. I’ve had practice._ Eyes shut tight, Rodney breathed out, “No walls closing in. No walls at all. Wide open fields. Clear blue skies. Wide open fields. Clear blue skies.”

John swallowed hard, feeling gut-punched. Glaring furiously at the door control, he mentally ordered it, _Open! I said ‘Open’ you bastard!_ But the door stayed put.

Feeling steadier, Rodney quietly said, “Call Zelenka.” _Wide open fields. Clear blue skies._

John grunted. “What?”

“Call. Zelenka. To do a manual override on the door.” _Wide open fields. Clear blue skies._

With a quick nod, John raised a hand to activate his headset. “I saw him heading out earlier, but—” 

Rodney heard a soft _whumm_ from the control box, followed by a much bigger _whoosh._ His eyes snapped open. “Wide open _door!”_ he exclaimed, then hustled across the lab and leaned onto the promenade. _High ceilings. Lots of space. Plenty of air._

Pensively chewing his lower lip, John dropped his upraised hand to the doorframe. This wasn’t just off-kilter, it was off the rails. He frowned a little and thought as loud as he could, _Hey, Atlantis? I don’t know if you’re mad at me or what, but don’t take it out on Rodney._

If the city heard, she gave no indication.

John had to wonder if _that_ was the problem: Atlantis couldn’t hear him. It wouldn’t account for everything, but it was something he could wrap his head around, unlike the question of how to make up with an offended city-ship. He needed to find someplace where he could connect to Atlantis directly, so she couldn’t miss him; someplace that didn’t need extra power or authorization to access. John _really_ didn’t want to try explaining any of this officially — they’d throw him in a rubber room for sure.

John walked over to the lab door with a casual, “I should probably go.”

“Actually,” said Rodney, pointing back and forth between John and himself,“ _we_ should definitely go where you can get me some Jell-o.” He hitched a crooked half-smile at John. “Claustrophobia is absolute hell on the blood sugar.”

“All right,” John said easily. “I hear they just got in a shipment of the blue kind...”

“Oo!” Rodney bounced on his toes. “Where do you hear these things? I’ve been asking for days!” 

“Oh, you know — around. There’s a grapevine.” Actually, there was a ship’s manifest, but Rodney didn’t need to know John’s source was paperwork. “Hey, you should bring along the Toadstool — maybe we can get it to activate.”

As they walked, Rodney squinted at the Device, muttering, “Toadstool, Toadstool.” Then he gave John a triumphant look. “Oh! Toadstool’s in that video game you’re always playing, right? Mario Planet or whatever.”

John grinned. “Not exactly.”

* * * 

Right in the middle of a perfectly ordinary afternoon (at least, by Pegasus standards), Chuck’s console lit up and pinged. _Well,_ he thought, _haven’t had one of those for a while._

A quick look around the Control Room revealed Dr Weir talking with Drs McKay and Zelenka on the far side of the room. Pitching his voice to carry without making folks jump out of their skin, Chuck called out, “Ma’am?” Dr Weir immediately turned to look at him. “We have an airspace proximity alarm for a pair of unidentified objects directly above the city.”

Elizabeth walked closer to Chuck’s station, with Radek and Rodney in tow. “Can you tell if they’re ships — Wraith or otherwise?”

Chuck adjusted a few dials and cross-checked the results, then replied, “No matches to any aircraft in the database, ma’am.” He pulled up a few more comparison screens. “And no animal matches, either. These readings are just—”

“Just what?” interrupted Rodney. Elizabeth laid a quelling hand on his forearm.

Radek scooted around the console to stand behind Chuck’s shoulder. “Oh, I see. That’s quite… ” He leaned down and pointed at a couple of places in the display, murmuring, “Try checking these?”

A few more button presses and lookups and Chuck shook his head. “Sorry, but the reading are just _wonky,”_ he said disgustedly.

“They really are,” Radek confirmed. “Definitely not artificial, like spacecraft, but not exactly lifesigns, either.”

Rodney stepped closer to look at the holo-display. “Ah, why are they flickering? Is there something wrong with the console?”

“It’s responding normally, Dr McKay, and I ran the standard diagnostics at the beginning of my shift,” said Chuck. “Everything looked fine.”

“They look almost like afterimages, or, or echoes, don’t they? Like they’re not all there,” mused Radek. “At least they don’t appear to be doing anything particularly threatening.”

They all watched the two pulsing blobs of light circle the inner city in erratic, criss-crossing orbits, then climb almost to the limit of sensor range only to plummet again in sharp zigzags.

“If it’s surveillance, it’s the weirdest I’ve ever seen,” said Chuck.

“You know, it’s strange, but this reminds me of the, the courtship flights of peregrines… ” said Radek. He shifted uncomfortably when he noticed Rodney and Elizabeth staring. 

“I thought you raised _pigeons,”_ said Rodney.

“Yes, well, if you want to keep your darlings alive, it helps to know what wants to eat them,” Radek replied. “Although _this_ no longer resembles courting behavior… ” He gestured at the display, where the flickering indicators had separated to hover over two different piers of the city.

“So, what, now they’re ignoring each other?” asked Rodney.

Everyone looked expectantly at Radek, who shrugged. “I don’t know — maybe they’re not very good at courtship?” 

“Or maybe they’re not birds,” said Elizabeth. She tapped her earpiece and began issuing orders. “Colonel Sheppard: Take the Control Chair in case these things turn out to be hostile. McKay and Zelenka will brief you on their way there.” 

The colonel’s voice responded, _Understood,_ and the two scientists nodded. 

“Major Lorne: See if your teams can get a look at whatever’s flying over the city. Right now, they appear to be above the East and Southwest Piers.”

The major’s voice replied, _On it, ma’am._

Elizabeth turned back to the holo-display. “Chuck: Keep everyone apprised of any changes. And good job.”

Chuck nodded and tried another setting on the peripheral sensor arrays. Everyone had their assignments, and his was to get as much information as possible for the Colonel and Dr McKay.

* * * 

By the time John got to the Chair Room, he had a fair idea what was going on, even though Rodney and Zelenka hadn’t given him a briefing so much as a stream of narrative bickering. They had argued over whether the sensors were picking up Lantean birds or some other kind of flying critter, then had drifted into whether the animals were stupid, drunk, or in love. Apparently there was a week’s wages on the line, though no one knew how they would identify the winner. 

Eventually John told them to save their crosstalk routine for vaudeville, and for five golden seconds things were quiet. Then they arrived and Rodney started demanding a diagnostic report of some kind from one of the consoles.

John tapped his earpiece as he paced around the Chair platform. “Elizabeth: Any word back from Lorne’s spotters?” 

Her voice answered, _Yes, John, but they report clear skies over the city._

“Understood.” He nudged Rodney with an elbow. “We about ready here?”

“Hm? Yes, yes, go on, light it up. ” Rodney waved vaguely towards the Chair without looking away from the tablet he’d connected to its base.

John rolled his eyes and sat down. 

Blue light flared as the Chair reclined, and just like that, he was floating, suspended in the mind of the only city he’d ever really belonged in. John relaxed, letting his awareness expand around the mostly inorganic sensory information now flooding his purely organic brain. 

It was so damn cool to be able to actually _sense_ things this way, like the location and motion of lifesigns all around and inside Atlantis, or the different electronic and mechanical systems in the city. Not that John really understood how they worked — the same way he didn’t understand all the systems in a human body — but he could tell when something was broken or damaged. Right now he could tell that Rodney’s recent tinkering had been good for the city: Atlantis was pleased by being able to do more and respond faster. 

John felt pleased, too, not just about the upgrades, but because he’d been able to _connect,_ immediately and effortlessly. He was sensing the city and he knew Atlantis was sensing him back.

_Home sweet home,_ thought John. _Are you pissed off at me?_

_You shared harm, but it heals. I share disappointment, but not anger. Love abides, and the rest is unfolding,_ said Atlantis.

_You sound like a cross between my mom and a fortune cookie,_ thought John. _But let’s come back to that later._

Atlantis shared agreement.

_We got an alarm about two flying things,_ thought John. He brought the high sky sensors forward, but detected nothing from them. John shared surprise. He brought up the Control Room displays, and saw they still showed two active signals. 

John shared confusion.

Atlantis shared reassurance. _There are no flying things, no actual danger._

In quick succession, John shared relief and surprise and reproach and curiosity. 

_You needed to be here,_ said Atlantis.

_Maybe next time just send a message?_ thought John.

Atlantis shared amusement. _I did._

_But it disrupted the whole city! Maybe go smaller?_ thought John.

_The earlier messages were smaller,_ said Atlantis. _But ineffective._

_Were all those malfunctions and weird noises and false alarms your messages?_

_Among others,_ said Atlantis.

John shared anger. _Your last message gave Rodney a panic attack!_

Atlantis shared regret. _An unintended consequence. The current message is more effective._

John sensed Atlantis turn off a minor Chair system.

_You are not the only one who needed to be here,_ said Atlantis.

Rodney monitored the power flows as the Chair responded to John’s commands. Everything looked rock-solid. Holographic screens appeared in midair, along with a 3D representation of the city and the two indicators that were circling each other and the central spire.

Suddenly, the panel behind John’s head went dark. John looked fine, like he hadn’t noticed a thing as he looked at the holograms above him. The Chair stayed reclined and otherwise active.

Rodney stuck the tablet to a Velcro flap he wore on his belt and pulled out a multi-tool. “I’m just gonna check on that panel, there, okay?”

When he got no response, Rodney leaned in and pried off an access cover. He had to be blocking John’s view of the holograms, but John wasn’t complaining. Turning his attention to the Chair, Rodney fished around until he found what felt like a loose wire. He reattached it with one hand and prodded John’s shoulder with the other. “Hey, Sheppard, see if that’ll turn back on now.”

Rodney could only assume that John was so caught up in chasing down the bogeys with Atlantis that he’d forgotten how to multitask with the physical world. “Fine, I’ll just check it myself, then, hmm?” He reached down to the control interface pad under John’s hand, expecting the dim, mechanistic interface he’d always gotten from the Chair before the abysmal machine.

Instead, Rodney’s body jerked as Atlantis touched his mind, greetings and welcome and eagerness and impatience folding around him in a hug as encompassing as the sea. He invited the city in, and giddy relief welled up as he felt Atlantis suffusing his brain in a flood that couldn’t be called gentle, but was somehow _careful,_ especially with those aching gaps. 

Words didn’t really apply here — everything was more direct than language, faster than speech, clearer than images — but the concepts also arranged themselves into English as well, probably because he was used to framing his thoughts that way. Rodney told Atlantis how much he’d missed this, how strange it was to die and Ascend and reincarnate and Descend, and how much it hurt to have lost parts of his mind— even if he didn’t know exactly what they were — and how afraid he’d been that he’d _never_ know, and never connect like this again, that his weak human-engineered gene would relegate him to being a permanent, forgetful, forgotten observer. 

Atlantis hushed him with an intangible laugh that felt fond and happy and exasperated and kind. _Youngling, you are unforgettable from the first to the last. Now that you are here, observe bravely._

Oh, hello, suddenly John was there with them. Although, really, he’d been there the whole time, which hadn’t been any time at all in external terms, which was amazing, but not important right now.

John’s mind was tilting a little, reorienting itself to the gravity of another mind — _Rodney’s_ mind — sharing the space that had previously only held him and Atlantis. He could tell that Rodney was saying something, like always, but John only got the sense of the words, not their meaning. 

_You can communicate, if you both allow it,_ Atlantis said. Rodney told Atlantis he’d like that. John thought a thumbs-up. 

Atlantis shared satisfaction with them, and said, _Now: are you paying attention?_

_Wow, John, you’re here! And I’m here! We’re here, together! With Atlantis!_ thought Rodney.

_Yeah, Rodney, it’s pretty awesome,_ thought John.

A tiny sliver of Rodney’s mind was panicking for a whole bunch of perfectly logical reasons. The most prominent being that he was once again sharing his consciousness with another human. Sure, it was voluntary this time, and it was just John, but that was also a point of freak-out, because _it was John._ Action hero, math whiz, smartass, sex on a stick, and unfortunately straight as an arrow John-fucking-Sheppard was in his head, courtesy of and along with their sentient city. Which — _ohshitohshit —_ which meant they both just heard all that.

So much for tilting a little — John was spinning now, in the huge, strange loops of a runaway Ferris wheel. And Rodney was right there with him, both of them dizzy, because when Rodney said all that, John said things back. _Look, I’m just John, and all that stuff is you, too, okay? Except neither of us is straight, get that message already._

Atlantis said, _Rodney, you forgot what was unspoken. Now you are reminded._

Atlantis said, _John, you were never silent at all. Now you are heard._

Rodney’s body was just settling from the jerk it gave when his fingers touched John’s and the control pad. _Gotta love mind-speed communications._ He turned his head and shouted, “Okay, everybody out!”

Radek looked up from his console with a perplexed frown. “What? Why? What is wrong?” A pair of techs clustered nervously around him.

“There’s a, a glitch here, obviously!” Rodney scrambled for something just a little more convincing, but Atlantis was already on it. The lights in the room flared, then dimmed dramatically.

_Mood lighting? Real subtle there, O Ancient city._ The lights flickered with amusement. Rodney raised his voice again. “Look, I think I can fix it, but no one else should be here if it blows up.” In the quietest recesses of his head, Rodney thought, _Please, please don’t let us blow up or fuck up somehow._ “So let’s go, people — chop-chop!”

Radek shooed the techs away as he disconnected his tablet. “Wait, what about Colonel Sheppard?”

Rodney pointed at John, who ran his tongue over his bottom lip uncomfortably. “Him I need here, to make this work.”

“Go on, Radek,” John called out in a slightly rough voice. “We’ve got this.”

Radek got the feeling there were _several_ things going on that were being deliberately — and obviously — kept from him. But if they wanted to play it this way, he couldn’t really stop them. He just hoped it wouldn’t all end in tears. Or a big explosion. Radek rubbed absently at his unscarred chest, right where he clearly remembered getting all but dead by the electricity bolt. “Good luck. Both of you.” 

He hustled off, muttering in Czech to whoever might be listening that no one needed anything more blowing up.

The door to the room quietly slid shut behind him.

Rodney tried lifting his hand off of John’s because, well, traditionally speaking, certain conversations were supposed to happen directly, one-on-one, using vocalized speech and— quicker than Rodney could find the end of the sentence, John flipped his hand over, interlaced their fingers, and held on tight.

_Or we could do it the easy way, yeah?_ John quirked an eyebrow.

Rodney nodded as he stared at their linked hands. No point in trying to be delicate, not mind-to-mind, even if he could already feel a blush rolling up his neck. _So… not straight?_

_Nope._ John relaxed his grip a little, just enough that Rodney could take his hand back if he wanted. _So…_ _interested?_

Rodney thought of the lean body sprawled all down the reclined Chair, thought of the reckless heart beating double-time above, and raised his gaze to John’s wide, waiting eyes. _Very._

Then Rodney leaned down, leaving just enough room that John could slip by if he wanted. _You?_

John thought of the nimble fingers clasping his hand, thought of the kind, selfish, resilient spirit behind them, and raised his free hand to Rodney’s stubborn, stubbled jaw. _C’mere, I’ll show you._

Rodney leaned down and John surged up to meet him, their lips coming together a little harder than they intended, but it was good. _So_ good, with soft lips and firm pressure and just a hint of teeth. Then John slid a hand around the back of Rodney’s neck and Rodney tilted his head and it was even better. 

They fit seamlessly, breath mingling, lips parting. Rodney licked into John’s mouth with a moan, delving into his heat. John pulled Rodney closer and sucked on his clever tongue. The short bristles on their chins scraped together, dragging a rough counterpoint to their slick, sliding mouths. Rodney buried his fingers in John’s springy hair, prompting John to make a happy, hungry sound in his throat. Their kiss was just as deep as they knew how to make it, pleasure chasing longing on their tongues.

Eventually they used up all the available oxygen in their lungs, or possibly in the whole room, and had to break the kiss to gulp for air. 

Rodney dropped his forehead to John’s shoulder, and felt warm fingers running through the short hairs at the back of his neck. He was definitely going to need a heating pad for his lower back after leaning down for so long, but that kiss had _so_ been worth the price of admission.

John breathed deep, pulling Rodney’s skin scent, along with hints of coffee and soap, into his lungs. Then he noticed a soft melody rising from the platform. “Rodney, do you hear—”

“Music?”

“Uh-huh.”

Violins caressed a slowly descending theme that surged in a long, lazy spiral until an earthy contralto voice purred, _At last…_

“Where did Atlantis even _get_ an Etta James recording?”

John just shook his head and made to get up out of the Chair. Rodney smiled, broad and happy, and pulled him up for a sweet, thorough kiss.

A sudden flurry of glittering holographic bubbles drifted down through the air.

“You know,” John murmured when Rodney finally relinquished control of his mouth, “we’d better report back to the Control Room and cancel the emergency. Otherwise, a squad of marines is gonna show up and find us—” John swiped the pad of his thumb along Rodney’s damp lower lip. “—up to our asses in prom decorations here.”

“Hmm.” Rodney’s tongue darted out to briefly taste John’s touch. “And as appealing as the idea of seeing you ass-deep in, well, pretty much _anything_ is, I’d rather not have an audience for it.” Rodney reached out and nudged the Chair’s control pad. “Including a certain busybody city!”

An impression of smug, smug laughter silvered through the room as Etta switched to belting out, _And I hope you’re satisfied…_

John let out a sharp laugh that devolved into the awful braying that Rodney would never admit he found both endearing and contagious. They guffawed helplessly together, and by the time they subsided to occasional giggles, the song had ended along with the bubbles.

“There’s just going to be no living with her from now on, is there?” said Rodney as he disconnected his tablet.

As far as John was concerned, Atlantis getting in a little gloating _had_ to be better than what she’d been doing for the past couple weeks. “I’m sure your genius brain can come up with ways to cope.” He waggled his eyebrows meaningfully.

Rodney snorted.

John clapped Rodney on the shoulder. “All right, time to go face the _other_ music.”

Atlantis hummed quietly and opened the doors for them.

* * * 

During a subsequent mid-evening snack, Rodney froze, fork halfway to his mouth. A syrupy pineapple chunk tumbled off the piece of cake balanced there, landing back on his plate with a quiet splat.

John raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

“Katie!” exclaimed Rodney, loud enough that people sitting at the next table looked over.

John flicked his gaze around the room, then back to Rodney.

Rodney leaned over the table, bumping the rest of his cake off the fork, stopping a bare inch from John’s face. 

_Almost kissing distance,_ John thought with a little rush of desire tinged with panic; necking in the mess hall seemed like a really bad idea.

“No, not — she’s not _here,”_ Rodney hissed. “But I have to talk with her, break up, before we — I mean before you and I — um, _you know.”_

John’s eyes glazed over as he tucked away the thought of _you know_ with Rodney. “Yeah,” John whispered.

Rodney settled back down in his seat. Setting down the fork, he picked up the pineapple upside down remnants in his fingers. “It wouldn’t be right, otherwise,” he whispered, cheeks flushing. He looked straight at John as he popped the cake in his mouth and carefully sucked the sticky residue off his fingertips. “I want to make sure I do it right.”

John smiled. Now _that_ was an effective message.


End file.
